


August (They Are All That)

by itsaquinnquinnsituation



Series: X Years Later [20]
Category: Newcastle (2008)
Genre: Canon Gay Character, Canon Gay Relationship, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-27
Updated: 2015-08-27
Packaged: 2018-04-17 11:05:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4664211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/itsaquinnquinnsituation/pseuds/itsaquinnquinnsituation
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Real time (about 7 years later).</p>
            </blockquote>





	August (They Are All That)

**Author's Note:**

> None of the characters or the plot of the original movie belong to me. I am not making money off my work, which is written for entertainment purposes only.
> 
> This is my universe and exactly how I see it. Writing should be enjoyed, not judged.
> 
> Another bonfire night, a few years later :)
> 
> I highly recommend everyone to watch this movie.

It was about fifteen degrees outside – a relatively warm night for winter. Light breeze was coming from the vast expanse of the ocean, making the voracious lion’s mane of the bonfire dance joyfully in the middle of their small circle. 

Audrey never actually got a chance to ask Alexis just where she and Lisa had met all these lads who they were now sharing beer with right in the middle of the sandy beach. She herself felt quite uncomfortable the moment she realized she had been wordlessly claimed by Nathan – a cocky and somewhat inconsiderate lad who lost no opportunity to touch any part of her body which was not covered by clothes. Jesse, the lad that looked so much like Nathan that Audrey had a hard time in the beginning telling them apart, in turn, latched onto Alexis, though the latter, of course, did not mind it one bit because by nature, she was the boldest and also the most promiscuous one of the three. 

Audrey’s other friend, Lisa, was, by some unspoken consensus, left over for Scotty. In Audrey’s eyes, the problem was not in that Lisa was not pretty, with her thin mousy hair and somewhat crooked teeth, but that she carried herself in a way that was meant to attract attention, any kind of attention, at all costs. But Scotty, too, was a total mess, because he was freshly out of jail, pennyless, homeless and unemployed. Nevertheless, he, keenly aware of the situation, was quite nasty to the girls all day, though Lisa in her apparent naivete remained completely oblivious to it all. God knows exactly how it would have ended for the two of them, thus thrown together with two lads they didn’t really like, if just then, the night didn’t take a completely new turn.

 

The first new lad showed up unannounced and with no explanation as to how he had found them - he just appeared there, as if materializing out of thin air, but suddenly – literally - he was just *there* - joining a game of Frisbee, bringing his humour into this and that conversation, walking with Scotty and Alexis to grab beer cases at the nearest stand, and Audrey found her blood rush to her cheeks as she realized she was staring at him. 

He introduced himself as Andy.

Lisa, too, seemed to have become hypnotized by this lad, because she followed him around, listening to him with an open mouth. She asked him to show her some surfing motions. She asked him to crack open her beer. She must have asked him for his number because Audrey saw him entering it into her phone. Even Scotty looked like he was getting irritated and Nathan was acting even more aggressive than before.

After sunset, they were sitting in a wide circle, Nathan with his arm hooked around her shoulders on Audrey’s right, Andy, in front of her and to the left, but all Audrey could focus on was Lisa, who, despite sitting closer to Scotty, was chattering at Andy non-stop. Andy was smiling politely, but his eyes were going glazed, off and on.

 

Logs of bonfire crackled.

Beer bottles were cracked. 

 

Suddenly Andy’s eyes sparkled. They didn’t actually sparkle, of course, but he lifted up his head and the bonfire flames reflected in them. He looked from side to side nervously, lips stretched in an awkward smile, looked down, then attempted to rejoin the conversation. Audrey stared at him for an explanation, but she only received it some minutes later when she lifted her head and let her gaze travel into the distance towards the city where she saw a lonely figure walking towards them from the main road. 

This lad must have been coming from a casual business meeting or something, because he was wearing black jeans and loafers, and a thin black sweater thrown over a white shirt. He walked towards them leisurely, fiddling with his iPhone, breeze playing in his long shiny black fringe. 

Nathan greeted him first, and Lisa shut up immediately, turning to him.

“Hi all” – The lad saluted, lifting three fingers off his phone in an improvised wave. 

Scotty made a pissy face.

“It’s my brother, Fergus” – Jesse threw out off-handedly, as if trying to mute everyone’s interest in the newcomer. 

“What’s up?” – Nathan nodded.

“How are you?”

“Hi, I’m Alexis.”

“Hi, how are you?”

The conversation on the other side of the circle resumed as Audrey watched Andy turn to Fergus, wide smile splitting his face, and Fergus place his hand on Andy’s shoulder and then, without bothering to ask if he could, lift Andy’s beer bottle off the cooler top, hand it to Andy, push the cooler back and sit down right next to him in the freed space.

Lisa, too, was watching him.

“I’m Fergus” – Fergus leaned over and stretched his hand to Audrey. She could barely reach to shake it, still glued to Nathan’s side.

“Audrey” – She replied and shook it, sheepishly. Andy looked at her. She lowered her eyes.

“Lisa” – Lisa immediately stuck out her own hand, over Andy, towards Fergus.

“Nice to meet you” – Fergus twisted around and gave her his hand. They shook hands right over Andy.

“Sorry” – Right after dropping Lisa’s hand, Fergus whispered, touching Andy’s shoulder, and then finally returning to lean backwards onto the cooler. Andy turned to him but said nothing. Fergus smiled, looking down. Andy smiled right at him. 

Lisa immediately began assaulting the newcomer with a flurry of questions, which tripled in number once she found out that he was a university grad since she was attending at Newcastle herself.

The evening continued. Jesse attempted to entertain Alexis but she was becoming so bored that at some point she rudely turned away from him to begin a conversation with Nathan. 

Scotty was sitting silently and pointedly, face twisted into a pissy grin, an exaggerated look of boredom on his face. Nathan was laughing with Alexis, and Audrey, feeling more uncomfortable by the minute, was aimlessly scrolling through her Facebook feed, time and time again sending surreptitious glances at the lads on the other side of the circle. 

Lisa was chirping excitedly at Fergus. 

Fergus had to lean forward to be able to see her better and Andy graciously leaned back to let him do that. Andy wore a rather curious expression on his face, mostly just listening to their conversation, once in awhile turning his head to the side to cast a side-glance at Fergus. 

“..it would be like fifteen indoors, but she said” – Lisa was gesturing, - “’If you are so cold, get yourself a personal heater and set it next to your bed - or better yet, find yourself a boyfriend and go to sleep at his place!’ I mean, can you believe it? So rude, I mean… It was the middle of the semester but I still petitioned to get a new roommate!”

“Yeah, I can understand that, actually” – Fergus nodded, laughing, - “This one here” – He tapped Andy on the shoulder with his index finger, - “Would insist on opening the windows even when it was like five outside! And our dorm room was not even big enough for a radiator! At some point I seriously considered kicking him out, locking up, and making him sleep outside!” 

Andy, leaning even further back, opened his mouth as if to say something, but only continued to smile, staring at Fergus with that strange mischievous and fascinated expression. 

“So did you also change rooms?” – Lisa prodded.

“Oh no,” – Fergus turned to look at Andy. He lowered his voice, - “No, I wouldn’t do that...”

Scotty butted into the conversation and Lisa turned around to him.

But Andy and Fergus continued to stare at each other. Somehow, with their eyes alone, they carried on with that thread.

 

The waves came crashing.

The stars were eavesdropping from above.

 

At some point Andy’s phone must have buzzed because he suddenly pulled it out, looked at it, smiled, and immediately demonstrated it to Fergus.

“Wow” – Fergus waggled his brows at him, - “Nice! When can I get me some of that? Give me that thing, let me text her!”

He grabbed the phone out of Andy’s hands and Scotty’s mouth fell open. Lisa turned around to look at Fergus with an expression so hurt that she looked like an injured puppy.

“What?” – Andy waved his hand, noticing Scotty’s face, - “Oh no, it’s not… it’s not like… it’s just…”

“What are you…” – Scotty started, looking dumbstruck.

“Hm?” – Fergus barely lifted his head, continuing to type away.

Lisa blinked hastily.

Andy chuckled:

“God, Scotty, it’s my mother! She took a picture of this Polish dish she made! Fergs really likes it, so…” – He turned to Fergus and failed to finish his sentence. 

And he continued to stare at him over his shoulder, but Fergus didn’t even lift his head, the only acknowledgement of sensing Andy’s gaze being a faint smile playing on his plump lips. Andy then inched further back to see what he was typing, all but placing his head on Fergus’ shoulder.

 

The mighty giant of the ocean sighed with his salty-fresh lungs.

Nathan ran his fingers gently over the strings of the guitar.

 

Audrey, finally freed from Nathan’s grip, scooted away from him and towards Andy and Fergus. Soon, she joined the conversation. They were now talking about Wollongong, where the two lads went to university. 

“… just behind the train tracks, and that’s a really pretty area.”

“It is a pretty area” – Andy nodded.

Fergus turned to him:

“You remember?”

Andy didn’t respond but looked at him with a cat-like smile. Fergus raised his eyebrow. Andy mimicked his look.

Audrey felt her lips stretch into an involuntary smile:

“What, is there a story?”

“A story?” – Fergus turned to her, - “Uh, well, it’s not really a story…”

“It’s rather embarrassing” – Andy bowed his head with a chuckle.

“Not for you!” – Fergus turned to him in a snap, - “You weren’t even aware of what was going on!”

“What happened?” – Lisa insisted, looking from one to the other with wide-open eyes.

“Oh, it’s nothing” – Fergus shook his head.

But they just looked on at him, so he continued.

“Uh, well, Andy had this… I mean, when we were living over there in the dormitories…. Andy had this…”

“My wisdom tooth was giving me trouble” – Andy stepped in momentarily to help him out and immediately gave the stage back to Fergus.

“And one Saturday it got really bad so we were looking for a dentist that could see him on a short notice… and so, of course, the one that we found was kilometers away… So we had to take the train.”

“Why didn’t you drive?” – Lisa interrupted, scooting closer and all but falling over Andy.

“Oh, we…” – Andy looked at Fergus.

“We…” – Fergus turned to him.

“Well, neither of us owned a car at that time” – Andy remembered, - “And so…”

“…we didn’t really have a choice” – Fergus finished, - “Well, in retrospect, I should have just let him suffer until we went back to Newcastle and his mother could drive him, but…”

“You were a good friend” – Lisa blurted out and Fergus startled momentarily, looking at her with what looked like surprise, and then continued:

“Yes, and being a *nice and helpful* person that I am” – He pointedly made eyes at Andy and Andy flustered, looking down, - “I accompanied him to the other side of town…”

“… It was a nice train ride” – Andy countered.

“… On the way *there*, sure” – Fergus retorted, giving him a dirty look and sending him into a fit of silent laughter, - “And actually even his tooth extraction didn’t take all that long, but I… I just didn’t realise… just how much…”

“I was drugged” – Andy added and four pairs of eyes were drawn to him in an instant. He retreated, - “What? The doctor gave me a lot of pain medication, it was still a surgery, after all!”

“He managed to stay awake until we got to the train station, but then, he just sat down on the ground and fell asleep. It also didn’t help that we had to wait almost an hour…”

“…I don’t remember any of it…” – Andy made sure to note.

“I tried to keep him awake but he would just mumble some of the weirdest stuff I’ve ever heard, something about some gamma particles flying through aluminum foil… what was it, Andy?”

Andy laughed:

“The gold foil experiment? I must have been studying that at the time – I have no idea!”

“Anyway, I got him on the train and all would have been fine but then the controller was passing through, and well… she…”

“She thought I was pissed drunk… apparently. But I definitely wasn’t!”

Fergus made a face at him and continued:

“So I tried to wake him up, but it was like trying to raise a corpse, he was just laying on that bench like a sack of potatoes. So I tried to show the controller his prescription and discharging notes, to, you know, show that he had to take medication… but… but she didn’t believe me and asked me to see Andy’s ID… So I showed her mine and tried to explain that like I had to… but she kept insisting to compare the name on the ID with the discharge papers, so then… So then I had to go through Andy’s pockets…”

“I was wearing cargo shorts…”

“There were a hell lot of pockets!” - Fergus nodded with an eye roll.

“And of course, you only found his ID in the back one!” – Lisa giggled.

“Of course” – Fergus agreed emphatically, but then suddenly blushed, - “But there were… but some of the stuff that inadvertently fell out of his pockets right in front of that woman…”

“What are you talking about? I only have gum and keys in my pockets” – Andy demonstrated a pack of chewing gum and immediately looked at Fergus.

Fergus blushed again, looking down, then shoved him lightly into the shoulder.

“Anyway, that’s really it. The controller let us alone and then… we got off the train, and took the bus back to campus.”

“Did he wake up enough to get on the bus?”

“Uh… we managed” – Fergus looked at Andy and smiled. Andy just stared at him with the same expression of awe.

Fergus looked down and shrugged.

“What?” – Lisa prodded at them. Andy was silent a moment, then replied:

“He also apparently had to carry me from the bus stop through half the campus and then up two flights of stairs to our dorm room.”

Lisa made big eyes:

“Did you really?”

Fergus shrugged again.

Lisa said something else with those same notes of adulation before venturing into another story that she successfully got Andy interested in but Fergus’ eyes remained glued to something far away, something beyond the now invisible line of the horizon. His face suddenly wistful and exhausted, he stretched his arms out, cracking his upper back. Mechanically, Andy’s hand went up to it, running oval tracks around his shoulders, stopping to squeeze one, travelling towards the other, then down his back, for an instant only, crawling underneath his sweater hem and over his lower back, then back out and finally arresting on his waist. 

Lisa was still talking. Andy was still listening intently. He must have not even realized what he was doing because he only turned to Fergus when Fergus turned to him. He did remove his hand then, but he placed it on the sand right behind him, continuing to maintain their touch. And although this was no evidence of anything extraordinary, Audrey immediately began feeling daft. 

But not as daft as Lisa must have felt just minutes later.

Still looking at Andy with the same pensive expression, Fergus tapped him on the knee with the back of his hand. He then raised himself to his feet, stretching again, and Andy followed him with his gaze, observing at him for a good several seconds before standing up also. 

Lisa jumped up as well. Audrey felt a pinch in her stomach. 

“We’re going to go” – Fergus nodded, - “I’m kind of tired, it’s been a long day.”

Lisa stepped closer to him:

“Well, so, we’ll see ya? You guys are coming tomorrow, right?” 

“Uh..?” – Fergus turned to Andy, but Andy raised a brow and nodded at him, shutting him up.

“So, we’ll get in touch then?” – Lisa’s puppy eyes were glued to Fergus’, but it was Andy who waived his phone:

“Yeah, sure, I have your number. We’ll see you tomorrow!”

Lisa stepped closer intending to hug them but Audrey jumped up and held her back:

“t’s at two-thirty!” – She blurted to nobody in particular.

Andy turned and smiled at her:

“I won’t forget.”

Fergus also turned to her and she felt a bittersweet blob in her throat. She barely managed to mumble a goodbye, and then stood for a good few seconds watching them walk away. Then Lisa pulled her back down.

“So uh… Fergus is Jesse’s brother, right?” – She began to whisper to Scotty, - “His older brother? Do you know how old he is?”

Jesse, who was sitting not that far from Scotty, must have heard her, because he turned to look at her with dully glowing eyes. 

Lisa noticed his look:

“Oh, I was just asking…”

“Nothing in it for you, Lisa” – He threw out rudely, - “He’ll never be interested in you…”

“Uh, no… Oh, I was just…” – Her eyes became so wide and she retreated back so quickly that Audrey felt her stomach squeeze in a knot.

Jesse rolled his eyes and pointed in the direction of the city:

“Can’t you see that?”

“What?”

Scotty turned to her:

“They’re…”

Audrey interrupted him quickly:

“Together. They’re… a couple, Lisa. They’re dating.”

“Dating?” – Scotty laughed, - “They’ve been together for like a decade!”

Jesse rolled his eyes again and Lisa turned to Audrey, whispering hotly:

“I didn’t know! Oh, but I thought… Oh, I just thought like… like, they were roommates, you know, like… buddies, like, like… best friends…”

‘Of course’ - Audrey thought in response, allowing her gaze to rest on two figures in the distance, who were becoming smaller and smaller, until finally dissolving into the last stretch of sand leading up to the city:

"That's because they are... They are all that."


End file.
